Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/406



nabob living in unapproachable magnificence, and was at the head of all that was going. This was the man that appeared above the stormy railroad horizon in Oregon in his true form in 1868. J. H. Mitchell, one of the first incorporators of the original Oregon Central Railroad Company, but also an incorporator of the second or East Side Company, and their attorney, rendered very efficient service to Mr. Holladay."

To the above review of Mr. Scott, may be truthfully added, that Holladay did buy judges, and legislatures and attorneys to betray their clients. Mr. Mitchell was the first attorney of the original Oregon Central Railroad Company, and betrayed its interests to the Salem or East Side Company. One judge, at least, up in the Willamette valley was silenced, so that he would not follow the plain dictates of the statute law and universal decisions of the courts to protect the legal and just rights of the original Oregon Central Company. Another judge in the Multnomah district (and his name was not Erasmus D. Shattuck, or Matthew P. Deady by any means) offered to sell his decision to the original Oregon Central Company, and when his goods were declined, he went over to the other side, and like the judge up the valley declined to decide anything at all.

But it is all past into history. All the actors in the drama are dead but one. All the members of all the old companies are dead but this one. And while he was robbed of his rights and his property by a corrupted legislature, and cor- rupt judges, he still remains to enjoy in comfort a pleasant home that looks down on the city he has helped to build, with all the necessary comforts of life ; and what is better than all else, the respect of his old friends and neighbors — and lives to write this history of those who so wantonly robbed him, and gained nothing in the end by their wrong-doing.

Ben Holladay was born and reared near Blue Lick, Kentucky. Emigrating to Missouri in 1856, he became a hanger-on to the army at Fort Leavenworth, and drifted into various camp-follower speculations for several years until in i860 when the civil war broke out he was operating a buckboard mail and stage line from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake City. About this time the great army transportation firm of Russell, Majors & Waddle fell into financial trouble and in order to tide over their affairs and force a cheap settlement with their creditors, as related to the author of this book, by Mr. Russell himself, the firm delivered to Holladay, as their friend, $600,000 of government vouchers for transporta- tion the firm had rendered ; under an agreement that when they had settled with their creditors, Holladay should return to them the $600,000. Holladay took the vouchers, collected the money, and when requested to return it to the con- fiding firm, he repudiated not only the agreement to do so, but all knowledge of the transaction. As it was an unlawful act of the failing debtor he could not recover, and so, not only Russell, Majors & Waddle lost the vast sum of money but their creditors had been beaten by both the debtors and their deceiver, Ben Holladay. On this plunder Holladay came to the Pacific coast, bought the line of ships to Oregon and got into the Oregon railroad. He was a man of splen- did physique, fine address, and knew well how, to manage the average human nature. He was energetic, untiring, unconscionable, unscrupulous, and wholly destitute of fixed principles of honesty, morality, or common decency.

THE WEST SIDE ROAD.

Returning now to the Oregon Central Company, we find it in 1869 robbed of the land grant it was justly entitled to, but not wholly driven out of the' field. The citizens of Portland, Washington, Yamhill and Polk counties stood loyally by the old company, and not only gave financial aid to the extent of grading and bridging the first twenty miles of its roadbed, but also threw into the scale the weight of their political influence, declaring that no man